It Is Finally Finished

Last week, after getting back from camping, I started in on a project that I'd been putting off until I could spend the time doing it.

I had bought a clothesline pole set-up and wanted to put it in our backyard so we could stop using the dryer as much and thus save more money on our electric bill.

To get everything finished and ready so we could start hanging our clothes up was going to take more time than I could invest in just an evening, so I waited until I could spend the better part of a day on working on it.

So on Sunday, after I unloaded my car, I got to work on setting it all up.

I dug a couple of holes about 20 inches deep and then put a cardboard cement form in each. I filled them with some gravel (for drainage):

Then I poured in the cement and and placed the poles, making sure they were centered:

And then... I discovered that I didn't have enough cement to fill the forms.

So on Monday, I went to the hardware store and picked up some more along with the clothesline rope, clothespins, etc. 'Cause after all, I was going to be finished with it that night.

Wrong!

I poured the concrete and filled the tubes the rest of the way and then I started stringing up the clothesline. All was going well until I discovered that as I measured from one side the to other, that the poles were pivoting. So that one string from pole to pole might be the right length, but by the time I got to the last couple of strings they were too short.

Ugh! Another day and it's not finished.

The remainder of the week was taken up with things after work, so I wasn't able to get back to the project until today. A week after I started it. (This should only have been a weekend job!)

Today I re-strung the lines that were too short and got everything tightened up properly:

And within an hour I was hanging up clothes to dry in the sunshine! Finally!

Yay me for trying to lighten my carbon footprint on the planet!

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In other news:

Hotness killed our lawnmower today. Not the riding one, but the one we've had for 6 years since we moved out here.

It was making a weird rattling noise the other day which I attributed to needing more oil.

So today she goes outside, starts it up and it makes that same noise.

I came out and said that it sounded really bad. We changed out the old oil and gave it some brand new fresh oil. Started it back up and it still made the noise.

"Well, I guess I'll just mow and see what happens," she said.

And she mow she did. For about 5 minutes. When suddenly the mower went *CrAcK*!

I came outside and asked her what happened, and all she said was, "Don't come out here. It's dead."

Sure enough, there's a big ol' crack in the side of the engine that is irreparable.

I don't know what happened but now our mower is dead.

Folks, this is the second piece of lawn machinery that Hotness has killed.

She's at Home Depot right this minute buying a new one while I'm in mourning for our old one.

*Update!

She just returned with the new one and it is very similar to it's predecessor.

We'll see how long it has to live after Hotness 'breaks' it in.